Eventim's service fees unlawful

Eventim may not charge service fees exceeding customary shipping costs for the brokerage of event tickets. The Regional Court (LG) Bremen followed the view of the Consumer Centre North Rhine-Westphalia and prohibited such regulations.

Eventim offers admission tickets for concerts, sports events and other events as part of online trading. In doing so, customers can order admission tickets alongside premium shipping, for which Eventim charged a fee of 29.90 euros in total in the context of advance sales of AC/DC concert tickets, as well as order the admission tickets as "ticketdirekt". In the latter case, the tickets are not sent by post, but can be printed by the customer themselves after transmission by e-mail. This service is charged at 2.50 euros, although no material or shipping costs are incurred for this. In its General Terms and Conditions, Eventim merely points out that service and shipping costs are charged with online orders, which may vary depending on the event and are displayed in the shopping basket when placing an order.

The Consumer Centre North Rhine-Westphalia considered these regulations of Eventim to be ineffective and successfully took action against them.

Court's decision – Eventim is defeated

The LG Bremen (Judgment of 31.08.2016 – 1 O 969/15) followed the view of the Consumer Centre.

The regulation on "premium shipping" used by Eventim was incompatible with the essential spirit of statutory provisions and thus ineffective. With the regulation, Eventim demands reimbursement for expenditures in relation to the brokerage service, the provision of which the online merchant is obliged to perform in any event due to its principal contractual obligation. Furthermore, the regulation violated the transparency requirement, since the consumer, if he has to pay shipping costs, would not expect that this would also entail additional processing fees.

The Regional Court (LG) also considered the "ticketdirekt" regulation to be ineffective. The passing on to the consumer of the costs for the self-printing of the respective ticket contradicted the principle that the passing on of activities which are undertaken in the interest of the provider is ineffective.

Conclusion

The regulations objected to by the Consumer Centre here are also ineffective according to the Court's view, as they unreasonably disadvantage the consumer. Whilst the passing on of shipping costs to the consumer is in principle permissible, the consumer must be informed of this before conclusion of the contract. Expenditures of the ticket dealer undertaken in its own interest cannot be effectively passed on to the consumer.